amoghrajesh commented on PR #58357:
URL: https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/58357#issuecomment-3540180089
Hello - I appreciate you trying this out, I just pulled in your branch and
figured out the problem.
This is a classic case of the secrets backend taking precedence over the
database.
In Docker Compose you’ve defined an environment variable for
test_variable_key and secrets backends are read-only, so when your test calls
Variable.set(), the value is written to the database — and when you delete it,
Airflow correctly removes it from the DB.
The API server log even explains exactly what’s happening:
```python
[2025-11-17T06:12:57.057+0000] {variable.py:404} WARNING -
The variable test_variable_key is defined in the EnvironmentVariablesBackend
secrets backend, which takes precedence over reading from the database.
The value in the database will be updated, but to read it you have to
delete the conflicting variable from EnvironmentVariablesBackend.
```
So later, when your test reads the variable to confirm the deletion, it’s
actually reading it from the secrets backend, not the database. That makes it
appear as if the variable wasn’t deleted but it was.
Database proof:
```shell script
airflow=# SELECT key FROM variable;
key
-----
(0 rows)
```
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